UNICEF Official: Poverty Affects Children in L America

Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Bernt Aasen said on Thursday that millions of children in the region are still suffering poverty.

In Latin America there are children who "still do not have the basic services to guarantee their survival and to reduce their vulnerability to diseases and malnutrition," Aasen said.

The children in the region must be "protected from violence, abuse, exploitation, discrimination and abandonment," Aasen said.

The poverty rates in the region range from 13 percent to 40 percent and the situation in some countries is even worse due to unequal distribution of the wealth.

However, Aasen said despite the bad figures about the rural and indigenous areas, there are records of improvement that bring some hopes.

"Despite this situation, there has been progress in some countries, but it will perhaps take one generation time to resolve the current problems," Aasen said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2009)